Research Blog : google, Online resources

Speak your mind…opinions welcome, wanted, and appreciated

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:11:00 GMT

Hello out there to everyone in EVPL blogland,

I have a dilemma that I could use your help with. Every year I sit down to plan a workshop on useful government documents and websites (more websites than actual documents now-a-days) and every year I get overwhelmed with the glut of information I could offer… Do I focus on how to find useful health and nutrition information? Or on how to find those interesting statistics you always hear quoted from the Census and Labor Departments? Or what about consumer safety information? Or how to navigate Social Security’s website? Or how about following legislation? The list can go on and on. So, I’m opening the floor to all of you, the people that the government is trying to reach with all of this information. What do you most want to know about? What do you need help discovering? Let me know how best to help you.

Vacation on a budget...

SuDocQueen@evpl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:38:00 GMT

Nowadays everyone’s talking about staycations. This reminded me of the wonderful vacations my parents took me on even when we had to watch every penny. How’d we do it? By visiting our National Parks and State Parks (and camping, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). Most parks have entrance fees for an entire passenger car that are cheaper than an individual ticket to Disney World.

Starting in the winter my parents would send away for scads of pamphlets and maps of parks like the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and Slide Rock State Park. Planning early is still a good idea but now it’s even easier. All you have to do is go to www.nps.gov. From there you can learn about every national park in the country. They have a great search tool on that front page. Just click on the state you’re interested in visiting and you’ll get a list of all the parks in that state. But what if you know the name of a park but not what state it’s in? No problem. Click on the “Advanced SearchTool and Map.” From there scroll below the map and you’ll see a great browser tool that will let you pick your park by name, location, preferred activity, or even topic (like mountains or volcanoes or coral reefs).

But what about state parks? Well, if there’s a site out there that pulls all state parks under one “roof” I haven’t found it yet, but putting “state parks (insert the state name of your choice)” into Google does a terrific job of pulling up each state’s website.

And, if you’re at Central Library stop by and take a look at some of the books and pamphlets the National Parks Service still puts out. We have a whole series of pamphlets on the Blue Ridge Parkway trails. Just ask one of us about Call # I 29.149. Or if you’re interested in the historic details of sites, you might want to take a look in our I 29.88 area. Those are historic structure and site reports on places like Fire Island Lighthouse, the Eleanor Roosevelt Historic Site, and Antietam National Battlefield.

Google Book Settlement May Transform Google Book Search Into Google Bookstore

Bufkinite@evpl — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:26:00 GMT

The November 3, 2008 Library Hotline has a lead article on a landmark settlement between Google and the Authors Guild (AG) and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), two organizations that had filed suit against it over the Google Book Search Project. The details are very sketchy, but "Google has announced that the parties have agreed to expand Google Book Search into what will be the web's largest online commercial book venture. Hotline says "the deal could mean significantly increased access to book content online," but not everyone is happy. Harvard University, for example, has noted that it will not participate with Google in the scanning of in-copyright works, and will continue with its policy of only allowing Google to scan books whose copyright has expired.

On it's web site, Google explains the settlement in terms of what will change and what won't. Access to books that are out of copyright won't change much at all. Access to books that are in copyright but out-of-print, or in copyright and in print, will change from the current "snippet" view to more of what is currently the preview view , where you're allowed to view up to 20 full pages of text, then decide whether you'd like to purchase "full online access" to millions of books. Publishers and authors will have their royalties managed through the creation of a "Book Rights Registry."

You can't, apparently, actually download the titles you purchase - at least not yet - but simply keep then on your "electronic bookshelf" within your Book Search account.

Libraries will be able to "purchase institutional subscriptions" allowing their customers access to the full text of the books on the library's "electronic bookshelf," but there's no information about being able to download or "check out" these ebooks. Public and academic libraries will also be able to offer terminals where users can access the out-of-print books for free. However, an article at Xconomy.com makes the point that, while libraries are supposed to be offered a free, view-only license to Google's digital collections, that the agreement actually "restricts each public library to exactly one Google terminal."

Time will tell whether the proposed model will generate enough money for authors & publishers, or enough interest from the reading & book-buying public. I'm not hopeful, because while I enjoy downloading ebooks to read, maintaining an "electronic bookshelf" on Google's servers as a virtual adjunct to my own print library isn't attractive to me at all.

What do you think?